Growing potatoes in containers is straightforward, gratifying and most of all it’ll enable you to beat the house drawback since you’ll place the instrumentality anyplace you would like.
It’s not that tough to grow 100 pounds of potatoes, and once you scan the steps, you’ll be shocked simply however straightforward it’s.
Buy seed potatoes
Whether you obtain seed potatoes or food market potatoes, you ought to certify to decide on the healthiest potatoes to grow. Don’t use any potatoes that have signs of bruises or rots. Once you’ve got chosen the potatoes to grow, place them during a dark cool surroundings till they develop eye buds. this could take a couple of days. once you see the buds, you’ll begin planting your potatoes.
You should plant solely the potatoes that have two to three eye buds. If a potato has quite three buds, you’ll cut the remainder of the buds and leave solely the three sturdy ones.
Cutting the potatoes
Use a clean, sharp knife to chop every tuber into many sections, being positive every section contains a minimum of one “eye” and an in. of flesh. Let the cut potatoes rest for 24-48 hours before planting. This interruption allows the cut space to callous over and helps keep soil-borne diseases from decomposition the tuber before it will grow.
Pre-sprouting
This is not an important step either however it will boost the expansion your potato seeds. you’ll keep your potatoes seeds during a cool and dimly lit surroundings for a few weeks till the potato seeds develop sturdy sprouts.
Choosing a instrumentality
You need to use giant containers for growing potatoes. Potatoes need depth instead of dimension. a perfect instrumentality ought to be a minimum of twenty four inches deep. each 2 potato seeds ought to be full-grown during a 5-gallon instrumentality. If you would like to grow four potato seeds per instrumentality, you ought to use a 10-gallon instrumentality.
Potatoes like heat thus any plastic instrumentality which will offer heat is a wonderful alternative. Thus, you’ll use buckets, dustbins, sacks, and tires to grow potatoes. it’s essential that any instrumentality you utilize ought to contain plenty of voidance holes.
Planting Seed Potatoes
As we have a tendency to mentioned earlier, potatoes need heat. Thus, you shouldn’t begin planting till the last frost has passed. it’s crucial that the soil is heat enough to permit potato seeds to grow. The soil temperature ought to be higher than 40F (4 C) otherwise your plants won’t grow.
You can use your garden soil if it’s a decent quality soil. If it’s not, it’s suggested that you just purchase some smart quality soil. Fill four to five inches of the instrumentality with soil. place the potato seeds on the highest of the soil with the attention buds facing upward. Then, add another five inches layer of soil to hide the potato seeds.
Growth necessities of potatoes
The only negative once you grow potatoes in tiny areas like this can be the constant have to be compelled to water. Potatoes have to be compelled to be systematically damp, thus a daily submersion throughout summer’s heat is Associate in Nursing absolute should.
Fertilizing
Potatoes aren’t significant feeders, so applying a natural fertiliser is enough. Well-rotted manure and compost area unit enough to supply your potatoes with the nutrients they have to grow. However, for optimum growth, you’ll apply Associate in Nursing organic liquid fertiliser. You shouldn’t fertilize your plants quite once a month.
Potatoes would like plenty of metallic element to grow. Therefore, you ought to avoid applying an excessive amount of element fertilization to them. element fertilizers can promote foliage growth instead of potato growth.
Harvesting
When the leaves area unit yellow and you begin seeing blooms, you’ll begin harvest your potatoes. Don’t wait too long to reap otherwise you may be harvest dry potatoes.
This is a way to grow potatoes in containers with success. Follow these steps and you may get pleasure from an important yield of sweet delicious potatoes.